


Flies and Cobwebs Unwind

by lamonnaie



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Implied/Referenced Anxiety, Introspection, Josh-centric, Nostalgia, Self-Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:06:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26834908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lamonnaie/pseuds/lamonnaie
Summary: Not to everyone, but a select few, he’ll be the first to admit it: this is not how I expected it to go. Because fame and glory and wealth are amazing, but the people and the connections and the music are infinite times better.A look back on the last decade of Josh's life and what it all means to him.
Kudos: 3





	Flies and Cobwebs Unwind

**Author's Note:**

> I started this rambly Josh-centric piece a year ago before finding and finishing it this afternoon, so apologies for inaccuracies or if details don't match up because they probably would have a year ago.
> 
> Title from "Lovely" by Twenty One Pilots.

Sometimes Josh had trouble voicing his thoughts. It wasn’t exactly that he was repressing them or anything. Honestly, he thought he was quite at peace with himself. Yet he had a tendency to fully invest himself into everything he did – whether it was drumming until the beat was engraved into his brain or boxing until his fingers bled and his bones ached.

It might have been a fully unconscious thing, or maybe it wasn’t. Nevertheless, Josh liked to think it was. Something about the unchangeable course of fate and destiny and belonging brought him comfort. Nothing better than knowing that whatever you do, it’ll always work out in the end. Because hey, fate has plans for everyone, right?

But that doesn’t mean that Josh never gets stuck. Oh no, quite the contrary actually. The number of times he’s had to remind himself that _“it’ll all work out; it’ll all be fine.”_ At least he can say for sure that he has a hundred percent track record against those moments, Josh – 729, life – nil. Yet he’s not superman or batman or some other stereotypically crafted superhero, he’s just Josh.

“Just” Josh isn’t a bad thing by any means; he’s got his family and friends and the love of his life and a whole world within the world carved out just for him. So much for not being a superhero, but he likes these sorts of clichés, Josh has decided.

Heck, he even got a dog out of it. _A dog._ Jim – the fluffiest, most adorable ball of joy he’s ever seen. He’s cute and he knows it. Josh knows it. Everyone knows it. But the day he got him wasn’t all fairy floss and rainbows, think more along the lines of awkward pauses and held-back tears. Because not every day is a good day and sometimes he desperately needs a pick-me-up. ‘Emotional support animal,’ said the papers. ‘Superdog,’ says Josh. He might not be a superhero himself, but that doesn’t mean that others aren’t. 

Not to everyone, but a select few, he’ll be the first to admit it: _this is not how I expected it to go._ Because fame and glory and wealth are amazing, but the people and the connections and the music are infinite times better. The adrenaline, the energy, the screams and the impact – he doesn’t think he’ll ever get enough of it. Every once in a while, someone will come up to him with a smile and a glimmer in their eye to say, “You saved me.”

“ _No, YOU saved me,”_ he wants to say.

“You saved yourself,” he says instead. They’re both equally as true.

He’s just Josh – no Josh could ever save someone by himself, but together? Together they could scale mountains and cross oceans and save forests. _Huh_ , clichés aren’t so bad after all.

This little world they’ve created, Tyler and him, couldn’t be described with any of the clichés or all the clichés in the world. They fought tooth and nail for it. They gave up everything to build something out of nothing.

“ _I think we can do it.”_

Nights spent poring over the same five tracks would bleed into the early morning light, but they’d stay put – singing, listening, recording, repeat. He’d seen dozens of musicians so confident that they’d succeed, yet it would only be a matter of months before their ambition would wane and their desire would be blown out by the tumultuous train wreck that is the music industry.

He’d never wanted that for the two of them. This entire ride might have begun out of Tyler’s will, but and the end of the day it would always be _TylerandJosh._ And heck, they’d doubted everything from day one, never getting ahead of themselves just in case the solid ground they had worked so hard to grasp on to wasn’t as solid as they thought. Fame wasn’t all about the glitz and glory; they’d have to deal with the sleepless nights and zombie days and the 3am cries of ‘ _this isn’t what I wanted’_ , and they knew it from the start.

_“We did it.”_

There wasn’t a set day nor a specific moment when Josh realised, but it had been gradually creeping up on them for a while. More regulars slowly trickled into the crowds and familiar faces all blurred together into one as they became too many to keep track of. They’d made it onto the radio, _the radio._ Road trips turned into America-wide adventures, which turned into international tours.

Despite the everchanging crowd as they cycled through bigger and better places, every single night on the stage would still end the same: his arm around Tyler, the sweat evident on his back, and the dozens turning into hundreds turning into thousands of faces staring back at them as if they’d hung the stars.

And perhaps they had, but not in the celestial sense. The two of them had carved out hundreds of unique constellations, a place for every single one of them to orbit around. The misfits, the shunned, the frightened – they’d all found their own place, their own _clique._ Yet it had become so much bigger than just what he and Tyler had created. It was a family spanning the entire globe, spurred on not only by their music, but by each person’s own experiences and stories and connections that made them who they were.

Sometimes Josh would tear up a bit just thinking about the impact that Twenty One Pilots had had. They’d helped others, united people, saved their own lives if he really thought about it. The fact that two boys from Ohio could do all _that_?

“Absolutely crazy,” he’d told Tyler. _Absolutely magical,_ he’d told himself.

Because sometimes Josh had trouble voicing his thoughts. He wasn’t repressing them or anything, but the astronomical turn for the better his life had taken in the last decade could be overwhelming sometimes. But as long as he had the people, things and dog he loved, he could do it.

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as a Joshler Lovely song fic, but we can clearly see that that did not happen.  
> Thank you for reading <33  
> Come say hi on [tumblr](http://lamonnaie.tumblr.com) if you'd like :)


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